We enjoyed meeting these new (to us) bloggers from When the Cat is Away. They seem to have a sweet rapport with their human and each other.

Funny Farmer Felines: Please introduce yourself and your human.

Tessa: We’re two female rescue cats named Tessa and Kajsa. Tessa is a gray long-haired cat. Kajsa is white and brown and has short hair. The shelter claims that we are sisters, but no human has ever invested in a DNA test, hehe. We were found more dead than alive in the middle of January 2015 – it was about -20°C (-4 Fahrenheit)! We don’t want to talk about our past, but humans have been wondering where we came from. Nobody reported us missing, and despite all efforts, the shelter couldn’t find our previous owners.

Kajsa: In a country with such a small population like Finland, shelters and animal rescue organizations are largely interconnected: it’s unlikely that a missing cat report didn’t reach the umbrella organization of our shelter. We are now probably 4-5 years old. Our silly human knows her own day of birth, but she keeps her age a mystery: “30-something”, that’s all we’re allowed to display. We call our human “Mom” although we rather think of her as a servant to the feline aristocracy. Then again, aren’t all Moms servants to their offspring?

Funny Farmer Felines: How did you all come to live together?

Tessa: Mom wanted to have cats for a very long time. However, she’s been in and out of mental health care institutions and thus struggling financially. She felt it was irresponsible to get cats because she couldn’t afford vet bills. Accidentally, her parents learned about her desire to adopt cats, and offered to help with vet bills until Mom’s financial situation stabilizes. Mom lived next door to our shelter, so she went there to have a look. She wanted to adopt two adult cats: it’s easier for kittens to find a family, and she wanted to give a cat a second chance. She’d have loved to get senior or disabled cats, but as her parents were to pay the vet bills, she felt she couldn’t take a high-risk candidate home.

Kajsa: For some weird reason, she wanted to adopt male cats. Because of a funny misunderstanding, she didn’t know we were gals when she adopted us! (The Finnish language doesn’t distinguish between “she” and “he”, so it’s easy to mix up). We were the first couple she saw, and decided to adopt us. If Mom went to a shelter today, she’d ask for the least adoptable cats and take it from there. But luckily for us, times were different when she came to our shelter that very day.

Funny Farmer Felines: Tell us a little about the area where you live.

Tessa: We live in the suburbs of Helsinki, the capital of Finland. Mom is originally from Germany, but has lived in Finland for many years. We’ve been with her to Germany several times, so we’re sometimes traveling abroad!

Funny Farmer Felines: Do you have any nicknames?

Kajsa Mom calls Tessa “Schlumpf”, the German name for Smurf. Nobody knows why.

Tessa: Kajsa is our “Nervensäge” – a great German word with no English equivalent. Literally, it means “nerve saw”. You can also say “getting on somebody’s nerves” in German, but being “a saw to someone’s nerves” is obviously stronger. Well, you can probably guess how Kajsa got her nickname, hehe. On our blog, Kajsa is known as the Queen of Indecision.

Funny Farmer Felines: What kind of mischief do you like to get into, either separately or together?

Kajsa: This is a trick question, all cats are genuinely innocent! We never get into any mischief; it’s our silly Mom who has weird opinions and/or is responsible for the circumstances that led to our seemingly mischievous behavior! Tessa drives Mom mad because she chews on strings and cables, especially the ones for headphones and phone chargers. Mom’s annual cost for headphones is about 120€ ($140). We think it’s her own fault as she doesn’t look out for “her” belongings. That being said, Tessa is very good at taking advantage of opportunities. To destroy a phone charger cable takes less time than Mom’s bathroom visits.

Tessa: We call Kajsa the Queen of Indecision for a reason: she needs too long time to decide what she’s gonna do into to the extent that she’s hardly ever fast enough to get into any mischief. Good thing that she typically drives Mom crazy with her indecision, so she keeps Mom on her toes, too.

Funny Farmer Felines: What made you open a blog?

Tessa: Mom started blogging before she adopted us. She had this silly idea of writing a professional blog on cats and mental health. Frankly, we think she read way too many articles on “How to write a professional blog”. She wanted to write informative posts on mental health and cats, spiced up with funny everyday stories. Well, this was in her old life – little did she know about the reality of living with cats. When we moved in, we took over her life and blog.

Kajsa: The blog soon changed to a non-professional type of online diary about our lives and struggles with our silly human. Mom agrees that blogging is much more fun now and doesn’t want to go back to her initial idea. Humans. They’re so helpless without us, aren’t they? Good thing that we are now in charge of her. Oh, and on a side note: we are the best mental health workers Mom has ever met.

Funny Farmer Felines: Do you participate in any blogging events?

Kajsa: We used to, but nowadays we only join occasionally. We felt that our creativity was suffering when participating in blog hops and theme days. Moreover, we prefer blogs telling individual everyday stories, and in our experience, blog hops tend to block “natural emergences”. We also want to make blog hops a true community happening, so the times we’re joining, we visit every participating blog. We typically look at the last 10-15 entries of every blog to find new blogs to follow. It’s great fun, but takes too much time, and our blog would suffer if we participated regularly.

Funny Farmer Felines: Are you on any social media you would like to share with readers?

Kajsa: Tessa is an extrovert and genuinely curious. She’s not afraid to make mistakes, and won’t learn from her mistakes either, hehe. Tessa’s probably a good example of “Curiosity killed the cat”.

Tessa: Kajsa, again, is very cautious (hence her indecisiveness) and shy to begin with. Once settled, she’s very affectionate and dominant. She’s the boss in our family and rules with an iron paw.

Funny Farmer Felines: If we were to ask your human mom what she loves best about you, what do you think she would say?

Tessa: We’re most gorgeous, clever and beautiful, so everything we do is divine, but some things are maybe more important to Mom than others. She loves when Kajsa purrs on her chest. Kajsa’s vibrating purr sends waves through Mom’s body, and kneads any anxiety away. Mom says that anxiety is like a very tight belt over her chest, and feels like a physical pressure so strong that she can’t breathe. Kajsa’s purr is often as effective as strong prescription drugs!

Kajsa: What Mom loves about Tessa is that she’s so curious and excited about life and everything around her. Tessa’s lust for life transfers to Mom and makes her appreciate life.

Oh, and the reason we never participated in your blog hop is actually that Mom is everything but an artist, so we never had a post that we could link to in Caturday Art. She’s really hopeless, isn’t she.

Oh, lust for life!!! A good quality in any kitty. You are adorable and I am so sorry for how you were treated when small but we’re going to forget that and have you pursue just how old your mama is…haha.
Hey, my mama does the same thing, but she’s into…”Oh, 50ish….”
No way, Jose.
Mama would love to see Finland. Great anthros, I hear.
GREAT interview.
Love, Loulou

Hehehehe. You’ll know when we change the text to “40-something”. But there’s still a looooot of years to come until she turns 40. It’s weird as she says that she’s at least 17 years apart from being 40-something although she’s a 30-somthing now.

Thank you, Summer! We love that you’re a therapy cat and bring so much joy to people in difficult situations. Mom says that we are the best mental health workers she’s have ever met – and she had many!

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